Is customer service defined by a set of averages?

Specific to B2C companies (not necessarily so for B2B), the answer, unfortunately, is 'yes' Guy.....even the ones that tout a more progressive model of measuring customer satisfaction, loyalty and experience, beyond the traditional call center metrics. This will continue to be the case as long as customer 'service' remains a silo....a department....which is not part of what should be the overall cohesiveness of marketing, sales and service, for a true customer-centric organization. To that point, here are a few examples (from my personal experiences) for additional input from Focus experts -- how often has the service department blamed customer churn on sales, and vice-versa? How often has a marketing department launched a campaign based solely on focus groups, without consulting the trove of customer data available from sales and service?

As long as departments operate as silos, they will continue to use production and activity-driven metrics (as mentioned by Mike as well) to define their productivity, versus aligning their objectives to customer perceptions, responses and ultimately overall success of the company.